The most frequently asked question by residents of Caldecote following the announcement of the proposal to build up to 3500 homes on Bourn Airfield is “why was the site chosen?”
It is a valid question considering that the summer 2012 South Cambridgeshire Issues and Options consultation document Chapter 5 listed two pros and three cons for the selection of Bourn Airfield for development.
Although it is relatively close to Cambridge and is considered a brown field site, if Bourn Airfield new village is built, it would result in a ribbon of development along the A428, which currently has poor transport links, and the site may not be big enough to sustain a secondary school.
Furthermore, during the discussions at the Members workshop in April 2013, it was apparent that Members had no appetite to build new homes on Bourn Airfield, or West Cambourne for that matter for the same reasons and more.
Transport infrastructure along the A428 corridor is poor, with only one bus service, no rail link and no link to the guided busway. There would need to be a complete rethink of and significant investment in new transport infrastructure to support the proposed Bourn Airfield new village. As traffic is expected to move to and from Cambridge, the congestion on the A1303 Madingley Hill would need to be addressed. The limited junction of the A428 with the M11 may need expanding, and perhaps relocating the park and ride at Madingley or building another one near the top of Madingley Hill.
Though main traffic route from any new village at Bourn Airfield is expected to be in the Cambridge direction, there will still be some in the St Neots direction. The A428 is a single lane carriageway from Caxton Gibbett to St Neots, and is the only section of road between Cambridge and the A1 South that is not yet dualled. It is already congested particularly at peak travel times and this will also need to be addressed.
Why was Bourn Airfield selected?
The growth plan identified that 19,000 homes are needed in South Cambridgeshire by 2031. Existing sites in South Cambridgeshire including the new town of Northstowe, will deliver 14,000 homes by 2031. This means that land for a total of around a further 5,000 homes needs to be identified whilst protecting the Green Belt land that gives Cambridge its unique setting.
A total of 62 site options went to public consultation through the South Cambridgeshire Issues and Options consultations in 2012 and 2013. This included options for new settlements at Waterbeach and Bourn Airfield, an extension of development at Cambourne, and a range of village sites at Rural Centres, Minor Rural Centres and Better Served Group Villages.
Outside of the Cambridge city, it may be argued that new settlements are the next most sustainable location for growth, rather than build more homes in our villages where it will be more difficult to provide the infrastructure to sustain them. The options of a new town at Waterbeach and a new village at Bourn Airfield scored as Amber in the assessment largely because such a major development will have some adverse impact on some aspects of sustainability.
So even though Bourn Airfield scored Amber, it was considered that it was possible to mitigate the adverse impact by designing the new settlements very carefully. West Cambourne also scored Amber and seemed to be a logical extension to Cambourne.
It seems inevitable then that the requirement to build sustainable communities and opposition to building more homes in villages, has put the focus on new settlements. There were few site options that fit the bill for new settlements, and one of those was Bourn Airfield ….. fate sealed.
What next for the villages affected by Bourn Airfield proposal?
The villages of Caldecote, Hardwick, Bourn and Cambourne itself will need to consider carefully their response to the proposed new village at Bourn Airfield and West Cambourne. Resistance to development may now be futile (as the Borg will say), but perhaps complete assimilation can still be avoided.
Despite the assurances to the contrary, there is great potential for the ribbon of development scenario to occur once detailed planning begins for the Bourn Airfield new village. Therefore, it will be in the interest of these villages to identify the potential harm, work out what mitigations could be put in place, and present a co-ordinate response when South Cambridgeshire District council goes to further public consultation later this summer.
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I have lived in caldecote for my entire life, in this time I have seen the village expand going from 2 roads and a dirt track with pig farms and fields a post office and a petrol station to adding 6+ new estates, with over 10 roads, we have a shop which is passed around like a hot potato because it is not at yet sustainable (probably partially due to the infirnal speedbumps which have also been added better at destroying cars than slowing traffic) a hairdresser a till and scales shop a village hall and our school seems to be expanding daily leading to morning traffic conjestion problems with kids running around. We have had cambourne dumped on our doorstep, in return we where given a bus service which ran every 20 mins, joy (still didn’t run late enough and isn’t reliable enough to be a sole form of transportation AND replaced a more reliable service which ran late and also had the x5 as a later night option to get home) which they then cut to shreds and made nearly pointless as soon as ‘funding ran out’
We have had house after house, deposited on our doorstep and I am pretty sure the majority of the village moved here for country living, when will enough be enough?
Already we see cambourne almost enveloping bourn, How long before we too are enveloped and caldecote hardwick and bourn are akin to chesterton and arbury?
we get the joys of mass parties held in our village by kids avoiding the heavy police presence in cambourne. We lost our bike riding village pc and postie, we lost a community that spoke to each other and knew each other, we lost a main road which could be driven without fear of damage to our veichles.
We have been party to a mass defecation on our doorstep by councils and developers promising us sweet nothings in order to build whatever they wanted. At what point is enough enough?
I know people will aliken this to being a ‘nimby’ view, but asides from not wanting this built on my doorstep destorying the village i grew up in and love beyond recognition, hating seeing the degredation of the countryside we chose to live in…do they not think we are at capacity? the traffic is awful in the morning, morrisons on a friday night is a nightmare, the bus services is shocking our schools are getting to the point of overcrowding, our crime rate (at least seems) to be increasing….and we have 20 houses on the market and a plot of land in caldecote alone…we need 3500 more houses? we can’t even fill the ones we have…
The education system we have in place cannot handle these houses, the traffic network we have cannot handle these houses, the countryside does not deserve us ripping it apart anymore. And yes they will whisper you sweet nothings about solutions and it will sound good, but they have said it all before and are yet to deliver.
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I have lived in Bourn all my life and HATE this idea. Cambourne was meant to be 3 SMALL villages yet everyone calls it one Big and i mean BIG one. Because of Cambourne Bourn gets flooding MUCH worse than it used to. There is now much more traffic in the area. However at the moment if it stays the size it is then there will be no further damage. Adding MORE to Cambourne and filling in the fields is a bad idea as that entire road will be housing. They are filling in housing in the East side of Cambourne which means this new build on Bourn Airfield will only be divided by a Small road. There is lots of wildlife that has made Bourn Airfield its home also the Market that is there Every Bank Holiday will be deeply missed. 3500 houses is FAR to much. Build 2 or even 3 Small villages further apart with a total of 3500 is what i say.
Cambourne is Big enough they need to build somewhere else AWAY from Bourn and the other villages. Haven’t we suffered enough with Cambourne growing ever bigger (which they promised more than once it wouldn’t), oh and its still 3 villages >_> yer right 3 villages where there is about a meter between them.
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